


A Hopeless Beginner's Guide to Gingerbread Houses

by frackingforaffection



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd Needs a Hug, Dimitri Week (Fire Emblem), Dimitri is good with kids, Fluff, Happy Birthday Dimitri, Holiday Cheer, No Spoilers, POV Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Soft Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:08:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28188972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frackingforaffection/pseuds/frackingforaffection
Summary: Dimitri has always hated his birthday. Blaiddyds born on the winter solstice were supposed to bring good fortune to the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, but with each passing year, the Crown Prince felt like he was single-handedly driving that superstition into the ground.That is until the professor suggested that the Blue Lions forgo their traditional solstice celebrations and throw a festive party for the monastery orphans instead.(aka: Dimitri makes a new friend and learns he can hold small things without breaking them)A very wintery and fluffy fic as a birthday gift for our King. Holiday cheer ahead!
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	A Hopeless Beginner's Guide to Gingerbread Houses

It was nice that a winter solstice wasn’t about him for a change. 

Blaiddyds born on the winter solstice were considered particularly good luck in Faerghus, to the point where all royal weddings were planned nine months in advance of the holiday. When Queen Natalya started to show during the late summer, the entire Kingdom was in a flutter, and when she emerged with a crest-bearing son on the blessed day itself, the entire Kingdom entered a frenzy. Everything that wasn’t food or liquor closed up shop, and commoners and nobles across the land raised their glasses as one to Prince Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd the First, their future Solstice King. 

Or so the story goes. Dimitri had a hard time believing anyone in Faerghus could show that much hope for the future, given the abysmal state of affairs he was currently too powerless to salvage. Each passing year only seemed to disprove the silly superstition as the people of Faerghus stopped waiting for better times and stopped toasting to their pathetic prince. It was hard to be a harbinger of good fortune when everything you touched turned to dust and ashes. 

So Dimitri was relieved when the professor suggested they forgo the traditional solstice festivities, and use the Blue Lions classroom to throw a modest party for the monastery orphans instead. After all, the lavish birthday celebrations in his honor only ever served as an agonizing reminder that people were suffering—both living and dead—and he wasn’t. Maybe this year he could finally make good on the promise of his birth. 

But when the time came, Dimitri was as useless as ever. 

Someone had foiled everything and told the professor it was his birthday, and she had felt so bad about forgetting that she didn’t give him anything to do. Dimitri couldn’t find a polite way to explain that forgetting his birthday was actually the best present she could have given him, so now he got to stand awkwardly in the corner while his classmates got to make people happy. 

Ashe and Dedue were serving some sort of winter stew that probably tasted as delicious as it smelled, and there was enough for each orphan to help themselves to seconds and thirds. Ingrid was in the courtyard letting the children take turns riding the monastery’s ponies, their manes meticulously woven with thick blue ribbon for festive effect. The rowdier kids had started a game of Knights and Bandits, which quickly (and unsurprisingly) devolved into an anarchic dogpile on top of a laughing Sylvain and a sulking Felix. Across the room, Annette and Mercedes were using their magic to make it snow indoors, and the children oohed and aahed as the mesmerizing white flurries clung to their eyelashes. 

The whole scene was out of a storybook, and Dimitri was ruining the picture. 

“Having a good birthday?” The professor lightly touched his arm, her eyes slightly widened with what Dimitri was starting to recognize as her subtle brand of concern. 

“To be honest, Professor, I feel a little out of place. I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to be doing.”

“Just enjoy yourself, Dimitri. It’s your special day, and I’ve been told it’s a lucky one.”

Dimitri wanted to roll his eyes and tell his professor that he wasn’t so sure about _that_ , but propriety only allowed him to smile as she spun around to stop a young boy from kicking Felix repeatedly in the shins. 

The professor stepped out of view, revealing a part of the picture Dimitri had missed. Mercedes had prepared an assortment of biscuits and icings and laid them out on a long table for the children to make their own gingerbread houses. The activity, while well-intentioned, proved too tedious for small, hyperactive hands and was soon abandoned in favor of more exciting ventures. 

Well, almost abandoned.

At the long table sat an impossibly small girl, probably not a day older than six, tiny hands wringing in her lap. Her eyes were glued to the floor, almost as if purposefully avoiding the wonderful wintery scene in full bloom around her. Perhaps she had resigned herself to simply waiting out the festivities. Dimitri knew the feeling.

Something choked his heart and a deep biological instinct yelled at him to _go help her for saints’ sake_. But when had he ever been able to help anyone? No, the best thing he could do would be to grab someone who knew the first thing about children and bring the distraught girl to their attention. 

But his feet were moving on their own, and he couldn’t find the will to fetch anyone else to help her. She reminded him too much of someone else—of a young and profoundly lonely boy always kept at arm’s length, as if the outside world was too fragile for his clumsy fingers. But that boy would one day be King, and if he couldn’t make just one child smile, maybe he had no right to be King at all. 

“May I sit here with you?” 

The girl didn’t look up, only politely nodded. Dimitri swung his legs over the bench and sat, the wood creaking uncomfortably under the new weight. 

“What is your name, miss?” Maybe that was too formal. Did children like formality? He had detested etiquette lessons as a child, but he remembered some young nobles actually _liked_ playing tea—

“Eleanor.” She said it so quietly, Dimitri thought for a second she had said a different name.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Eleanor. My name is Dimitri—” He tried to remember if his name was too difficult for children to say. The sounds seemed simple enough, but Felix couldn’t say it at her (presumed) age, and he had a feeling Eleanor would be too embarrassed to ask for help if she found herself in a similar predicament. 

“But you can call me Dima if that’s easier.” No one had called him that name in a long time. He secretly wished they would.

Eleanor didn’t respond. Maybe she thought “Dima” was condescending. 

Dima was not making a good first impression.

“Is there anything here you’d like to do? There are ponies outside if you’d like to pet them.”

Eleanor shook her head. Dimitri had never seen a refusal look so sad before.

“What about the pretty snowflakes, would you like to see those?”

She shook her head again, and even from his height, Dimitri could see tears welling in her eyes. Of course he would find a way to create misery amidst all this merriment. He suddenly felt very foolish for deluding himself into thinking he could make anyone happy, let alone someone so small. He was just about to find Ashe—he had younger siblings, he would know what to do—when Eleanor tugged on his sleeve and motioned for him to lean down. Dimitri obeyed her command, and tiny hands cupped his ear as she whispered:

“I want to make a gingerbread house but no one will play with me.”

Eleanor retreated and hung her head again. Dimitri didn’t know the first thing about gingerbread houses, and the cookies looked dangerously brittle for his brutish hands. He imagined trying to fit two pieces together and instead reducing the whole house to crumbs while Eleanor sobbed for someone to come save her from the monster that had destroyed her holiday. But she looked so sad _now_ , it was hard to believe he could really make things much worse. Maybe if he was _really, exceedingly_ careful, he wouldn’t make a complete mess of things.

“I’ll make one with you.”

For the first time that night, she turned to look at him, and the way her face lit up made Dimitri feel like he had just saved the entire Kingdom.

“Really?” Her voice was still soft—so heartbreakingly soft—but it was undeniably lighter than before.

“Of course. How may I be of assistance?”

Eleanor picked up the assorted shapes one by one, taking her time to examine them thoroughly. Dimitri didn’t mind being patient. She eventually found the two largest pieces and set them in front of the prince.

“Are these for the roof?” Eleanor nodded. It didn’t seem like she was going to speak much this evening. That was okay with Dimitri. “What color would you like me to use?”

Eleanor meticulously studied the different jars of icing, then picked out the blue one and handed it to him. Dimitri chuckled quietly.

“Could you tell blue is my favorite color?”

Eleanor nodded as she picked out a jar of yellow icing for herself and started decorating a piece that looked like a door. 

Dimitri hated delicate tasks, he really did. He hated how easily things broke in his big oafish hands, reminding him that they were only ever good for one thing. But he gently took a flimsy palette knife in his fingers anyway, silently praying to whomever would listen to get him through this with everything in one piece. 

His art was poor—he was sort of just lightly swashing the whole thing in blue rather than tempting fate with any particular design—but Eleanor seemed too engrossed in her own task to notice. When he nervously held the pieces up for her approval, she simply nodded and handed him another shape and a new color. 

The two continued like this in comfortable silence for quite some time. Eleanor seemed to thrive in the tedium that scared off the others, and as the perpetual, persistent storm inside his head began to still, Dimitri wondered if there had always been this much merit in something so mundane.

The individual pieces were finally finished, and as Dimitri observed their handiwork, he felt a slight shame at the sloppiness of his cookies compared to hers. But Eleanor must have been too content to mind—or perhaps too shy to say anything—because she accepted his shoddy work and began to piece the house together. 

Dimitri really had to admire Mercedes’ baking prowess—the cookies were cleverly cut so they could join together without the cumbersome reliance on something sticky. But it wasn’t a task designed for such small fingers, and it wasn’t long before Eleanor held out the pieces expectantly to Dimitri for his help. A miniscule amount of pressure was required to interlock the pieces just right, and Dimitri had absolutely zero trust in his ability to control his strength in such incremental degrees. This was the part he was dreading—the part where everything would crumble and Eleanor wouldn’t want to be his friend anymore. 

“Please, Dima.” The plea was soft as snowfall, yet it pierced right through to some hidden part of Dimitri’s heart that allowed him to acknowledge that someone might actually want his help. 

So Dimitri gingerly took the cookies and steeled himself for battle, mind emptied of everything except fitting the biscuits together with the utmost care. The four walls went up easily enough—the slots in the sides were generous and slid smoothly in place. The sugary structure was starting to look something like a house, and Dimitri could hardly believe that it was his hands doing the work.

Finally all that remained was the two blue pieces of roof, which interlocked to form a triangle that could then be placed on top of the four walls. The notches to join them together were a snug fit, but maybe if he applied just the _tiniest_ amount of force—

_SNAP._

Dimitri could feel the heat emanating off his face as he took in his destruction. Instead of two pieces for the roof, he now had three, and he should have known things were going too well for the joy to be anything more than fleeting. Eleanor stared emotionlessly at his gingerbread carnage, and the silent seconds felt like an eternity. Dimitri wasn’t sure if this was better or worse than the hysterical tears he had imagined her shedding.

“I...I’m so sorry.” Dimitri shamefully hung his head and maybe _he_ was going to be the one to cry. Some Solstice King indeed.

Eleanor held out her hands and took the broken pieces from him. He watched in quiet shock as she nonchalantly smeared pink icing at the breaking point and stuck the fractured halves back together again. The pink clashed morbidly with the blue—like a jagged scar down the center of some azure creature that barely lived to tell the tale—but there was something about the big, ugly seam that was charming in its own way. Maybe even beautiful. 

She wordlessly gave him the inelegant restoration, and with it her trust that he deserved a second chance. 

He went slowly, really taking his time to gently shimmy the notches into one another. The process (which would have taken anyone else about one second) seemed to take him ages, but he knew Eleanor would be patient. The biscuits finally clicked into place, and Dimitri tenderly set the roof on top of their completed home. 

The finished result was pitiful. The icing application was haphazard at best and the colors were garishly mismatched. Some of the icing that hadn’t dried was sloughing off the sides, and Dimitri’s touch had been so featherlight in his assembly that the whole thing threatened to collapse in on itself.

Dimitri had never been prouder. 

He turned to gauge Eleanor’s reaction, and she seemed adequately pleased as well. It was perhaps the happiest Dimitri had felt in years. 

The bell tower gave eight chimes, and the professor announced it was time for the children to return to the orphanage for the evening (and just in time, too—Felix was beginning to challenge a particularly feisty child to a duel). 

There was a chorus of whines and sniffles from the children who never wanted the festivities to end, and even Eleanor looked a little disappointed. Dimitri knew he was supposed to be the adult here, but he couldn’t help but feel the same way. He gestured toward the house they had built together. 

“Would you like to take it home with you?”

Eleanor shook her head and pointed to him. 

“You want me to have it?”

Eleanor nodded, and before Dimitri could say thank you, she rose to grab her cloak and hat from the disorganized pile at the door. Dimitri followed her, forgoing his own winter cape that he never needed, and the quiet duo joined the rest of the children outside as the Blue Lions prepared to escort them back to their quarters. 

It had snowed at some point during their party, and Dimitri almost began to tear up as he realized it was the first time he had seen fresh snowfall since leaving Fhirdiad. 

Eleanor tugged on Dimitri’s sleeve. He crouched down in the snow to let her whisper in his ear, paying no mind to the cold wetness on his knees. 

“Will you hold my hand so I don’t fall?”

Dimitri smiled, grasping her tiny fingers oh-so-gently, and the two of them walked hand-in-hand to the orphanage. Dimitri had to duck a bit to make it work, and he knew his back would hurt tomorrow because of it, but that worry was somewhere far away. For now the agony and uncertainty of the future was completely eclipsed by this miraculous moment where the long night had ended and, for the first time, someone sought his hands as a safe place.

They reached the entrance to the orphanage, and Dimitri put on a brave face to part with his new friend. 

“Well. Good night, Miss Eleanor.”

She only nodded before abruptly releasing his hand and running inside. Dimitri couldn’t necessarily blame her for the brisk departure—surely she was freezing, and it’s not like he had been a particularly entertaining host. Still, there was a selfish sting in his chest, and it dawned on him that she would probably forget all about this night and the mismatched fragments she had helped the prince piece together. 

He turned to walk back to his dorm, fist lightly clenched to make up for the emptiness. The inklings of thunder and lightning were beginning to boom and crackle in his head, until an urgent tug on his sleeve cleared the impending storm.

“Dima?”

The nickname was quiet as ever, and yet Dimitri could immediately identify the voice before he spun around to face it. 

“Yes, Miss Eleanor?” He crouched down so she could communicate in her preferred way once more. Her tiny, icy hands cupped his ear for the final time that evening.

“Can we play again tomorrow?” She stepped back, wringing her hands and anxiously awaiting his response. Dimitri couldn’t help a wide smile from overtaking him as he answered her.

“I would like that very much.”

She beamed and ran back to the nun who was patiently waiting to lead her inside. Dimitri watched after them for a moment to make sure they made it safely indoors, then twisted on his heels to return to his quarters.

Snow began to fall once more, and as the soft flakes kissed his skin and blurred his vision, Dimitri wondered if maybe his birthday wasn’t so cursed after all.

**Author's Note:**

> I know winter solstice is usually on the 21st instead of the 20th, but I'm not going to let IS take away my thematic possibilities. So, in this universe, the winter solstice happens every year on December 20th and Dimitri gets to have the solstice birthday he deserves. 
> 
> Fun little worldbuilding headcanon I couldn’t find an organic place for in this fic: the last Solstice King was Loog, which is why it’s considered such good luck. 
> 
> I just got a twitter so come welcome me into the 21st century if you want fic updates or just want to be fire emblem friends! @frackingfic


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